Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-mkpzs Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-23T07:48:52.170Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Voice, Context, and Narrative in Aging Research

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 November 2010

Jaber F. Gubrium
Jaber F. Gubrium
Affiliation:
University of Florida
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

A central question of social research is how experience is given voice in everyday life. Conventional methodologies provide technical answers: Issues of contextuality and the socially constructive and narrative features of method are not so much analytic and critical concerns as they are construed as procedural problems. This paper considers the question in aging research. Two sides of an analytic tension are addressed as they bear on method, one centred on voice and narrative and the other on the contextuality of experience. Observational and narrative material from qualitative studies of adults and elderly people is used to argue that a focus on ordinary, narrative practice usefully sustains the tension to provide the basis for a critical empiricism.

Résumé

La façon dont l'expérience est utilisée dans le cadre du quotidien constitue l'une des principales questions en matière de recherche sociale. Les méthodologies conventionnelles fournissent des réponses techniques. Toutefois, les questions contextuelles et les aspects méthodologiques sur le plan de la structure sociale et de la narration ne constituent pas des préoccupations analytiques et critiques, elles sont plutôt considérées comme des problèmes de procédé. Cet article étudie cette question au plan de la recherche sur le vieillissement. Deux facettes de la tension analytique sont examinées car elles ont une incidence sur la méthode, la première se concentre sur la voix et la narration, et la seconde sur le contexte de l'expérience. Les arguments se fondent sur des données d'observations et de narrations tirées d'études menées auprès d'adultes et de personnes âgées. Ceux-ci servent à démontrer qu'en se concentrant sur une pratique narrative ordinaire, on peut maintenir la tension formant la base de l'empirisme critique.

Keywords

VoiceContextNarrativeAging Research.Avoir voixcontextenarrationrecherche sur vieillissement.
Type
Articles
Information
Canadian Journal on Aging / La Revue canadienne du vieillissement , Volume 14 , Issue S1 , Été/Summer 1995 , pp. 68 - 81
Copyright
Copyright © Canadian Association on Gerontology 1995

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Foucault, M. 1973. The Birth of the Clinic. London: Tavistock.Google Scholar
Foucault, M. 1979. The History of Sexuality. Vol. I. London: Allen Lane.Google Scholar
Garfinkel, H. 1967. Studies in Ethnomethodology. Englewood Cliffs, CA: Sage.Google Scholar
Gubrium, J.F. 1986. Oldtimers and Alzheimer's: The Descriptive Organization of Senility. Greenwich, CT: JAI Press.Google Scholar
Gubrium, J.F. 1988. Incommunicables and poetic documentation in the Alzheimer's disease experience. Semiotica, 72, 235–253.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gubrium, J.F. 1989a. Emotion work and emotive discourse in the Alzheimer's disease experience. In Current Perspectives on Aging and the Life Cycle (vol. 3, pp. 243–268). Greenwich, CT: JAI Press.Google Scholar
Gubrium, J.F. 1989b. Local cultures and service policy. In Gubrium, J.F. & Silverman, D. (Eds.), The Politics of Field Research (pp. 94–112). London: Sage.Google Scholar
Gubrium, J.F. 1991. The Mosaic of Care. New York: Springer.Google Scholar
Gubrium, J.F. 1993. Speaking of Life: Horizons of Meaning for Nursing Home Residents. Hawthorne, NY: Aldine de Gruyter.Google Scholar
Gubrium, J.F., & Holstein, J.A. 1994. Grounding the postmodern self. The Sociological Quarterly, 35, 685–703.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gubrium, J.F., Holstein, J.A., & Buckholdt, D.R. 1994. Constructing the Life Course. Dix Hills, NY: General Hall Press.Google Scholar
Gubrium, J.F., & Lynott, R.J. 1983. Rethinking life satisfaction. Human Organization, 42, 30–38.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gubrium, J.F., & Lynott, R.J. 1987. Measurement and the interpretation of burden in the Alzheimer's disease experience. Journal of Aging Studies, 1, 265–285.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Gubrium, J.F., & Silverman, D. 1989. The Politics of Field Research: Sociology Beyond Enlightenment. London: Sage.Google Scholar
Holstein, J.A., & Gubrium, J.F. 1994. Phenomenology, ethnomethodology, and interpretive practice. In Denzin, N.K. & Lincoln, Y.S. (Eds.), Handbook of Qualitative Research (pp. 262–272). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.Google Scholar
Holstein, J.A., & Gubrium, J.A. 1995. The Active Interview. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jones, M.O., Moore, M.D., & Snyder, R.C. (Eds.). 1988. Inside Organizations. Newbury Park, CA: Sage.Google Scholar
Luborsky, M. 1993. The romance with personal meaning in gerontology: Cultural aspects of life themes. Gerontologist, 33, 445–452.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Silverman, D. 1985. Qualitative Methodology and Sociology. Aldershot: Gower House.Google Scholar
Silverman, D. 1989. Six rules of qualitative research: A post-Romantic argument. Symbolic Interaction, 12, 215–230.CrossRefGoogle Scholar